Glories of Spain

by Charles W. Wood

But as travelling, like adversity, makes us acquainted with strange companions, and we cannot always choose our types, we sat down to table with a good grace. The only alternative was to fast, a penance in which H. C. had no faith whatever. To-day this motley assemblage seemed peculiarly objectionable, without any of the redeeming points such people often have: honest, straightforward speech, directness of purpose and modesty of manner which are a certain substitute for cultivation, and atone for the want of breeding. Nothing of this was perceptible to-day.

The room like the one beneath was long and low, but lighted only by one window at the end, so that we were in a semi-obscurity still further increased by the weeping skies. A redeeming feature was the civility of the inn people, a fault their slowness. To make matters worse, the food was coarse and ill-served, and we had to pass almost everything. Long before déjeuner came to an end we left them to it and went forth to explore. We had very little time to spare, having arranged not to spend the night in Manresa: a lucky arrangement on our part, for picturesque and striking as the place really is, its resources are soon exhausted. A wet evening in such an inn would have landed one in the profoundest depths of melancholy.

On leaving the table we found that for the moment the rain had ceased. Our guide evidently thought it his duty to look after us, and no sooner caught sight of us as we passed downwards than he sprang up, leaving upon his plate a delicious piece of black-pudding. In vain we offered to wait whilst he finished his bonne-bouche. "You are very good, señor, but it is not necessary," he replied. "I am very fond of black-pudding, but this was my third helping, and really I have had enough."

This seemed probable. "Apparently the supply equals the demand," we said. "You must have a liberal master in the landlord of the inn."

"Yes, that is true," returned Sebastien—for such he soon told us was his name. "But we only have black-pudding once a week, and we ought to have it twice. We are agitating for it now, and as the padrone knows the value of a good servant I expect we shall get it."

Sebastien would not leave us again and became our shadow, sublimely indifferent to the rain which every now and then came down in waterspouts. To this day we feel that we saw Manresa under a cloud. It was a study in grey; and if we paid it another visit in sunshine we should probably not know it again. For this H. C. was responsible in preaching up his rainy season: the true fact being that the next day and for ever after we had blue skies and cloudless sunshine.

Manresa is rich in outlines. Its church towers stand out conspicuously on the summit of the rock on whose slopes much of the town is built. On leaving the inn we saw before us one of the old churches standing in solemn repose, grey and silent above the houses. The interior proved uninteresting in spite of the nave, wide after the manner of the Catalan churches. Sebastien thought every moment spent here waste of time. "It is cold and ugly," he declared, constituting himself a judge—and perhaps not far wrong. "It makes me shiver. But when the altar is lighted up on a Sunday evening, and the place is full of people, and the organ plays, and the priest gives the Benediction, then it is passable."

We felt inclined to agree with him, and wished we could see the effect of a Benediction service, but as this was not possible we left the church to its silent gloom and shadows, Sebastien cheerfully leading the way.

The streets, decayed and old-world looking, had a wonderfully picturesque and pathetic element about them, and on a bright day would have been full of charm. A canal ran through one of them, spanned by a picturesque single-arch stone bridge. On each side the houses rose out of the water, reminding one of Gerona or a Venetian street; handsome, palatial, full of interesting detail; a multitude of balconies, many of rich wrought ironwork; many a Gothic window with deep mullions; many an overhanging casement, from which you might have dropped into the running stream. Waterspouts stood out like gargoyles, and slanting tiled roofs were full of colouring. Towering above these rose a lovely church tower, splendid with Gothic windows, rich ornamentation and an openwork parapet, with a small round turret at one corner.